


sweet blob cephalopod

by heibai



Series: monster mash, graveyard smash, halloween bash [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Elements of Mind Control, Jeno is a tentacle monster, M/M, getting deepthroated by a tentacle, heibai's halloween bonanza, idk how to explain it but, mental grooming, nonconsensual mind probe, that's the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heibai/pseuds/heibai
Summary: Love can come from many different places.Obsession, too, can come from all sorts of places.This time, the sea.For you know,it is lonely in the deep.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun & Lee Jeno, Huang Ren Jun & Na Jaemin, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Series: monster mash, graveyard smash, halloween bash [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977901
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	sweet blob cephalopod

Renjun didn’t know what he was doing there. Standing in front of a foreign door, on the fifth floor of a deserted apartment complex, located in an unfamiliar part of the town’s coastal line, waiting for basically an unknown person to answer the doorbell. 

Renjun didn’t have that many friends, that was true. Aside from his coworkers at the shop, he only knew the man that sold him the buns he usually gets every morning and… and no one else. It was honestly a lonely existence, but even then he _knew_ that answering an out of the blue kakaotalk message from an old high school acquaintance inviting him for a dinner at his home was… stupid, at best, and completely disregarding the entire common sense to not get oneself killed, at worst.

But _knowing_ and _understanding,_ are two completely different concepts, aren’t they? 

Which was why Renjun ended up there in the first place. His desperation winning against the bare necessities of common sense. But just barely, as after he’d spent nearly a minute standing awkwardly on the deserted corridor, he finally realised how _weird_ all of these were. His acquaintance’s message, the uncontrollable urge that he felt when responding to the odd text. “What am I doing here?” He mumbled his way back to his senses.

But then, the apartment door opened. His classmate, one Na Jaemin, greeted him with the brightest smile anyone's ever given to him and Renjun’s worries were quickly dissolved into the ocean. 

“I’m so glad you can make it!” 

  
  


_

  
  
  


In the wrong hand, the apartment would’ve felt claustrophobic.

But Jaemin, that nifty bastard, somehow managed to turn a matchbox property into something certifiably _delightful._

Light streamed in from the ceiling-height window that overlooked the green water of the nearby pier at dusk, and Renjun was captivated by how fittingly its reflection blended with the robin’s egg walls and sandy flooring of the living room. 

Jaemin still apologised for it, though. Chattering about mindless thises and thatses as he told Renjun to just relax and sit on the small, three seater birch-white dining table right beside the kitchen, which was half obscured by a matted self-installed sliding screen. It still completely failed in masking the lively sizzling and aromatic smell of something being fried in a pan full of butter. And from the sound of lids clanging against pots, spatula scraping against pans, it was apparent that the certain _someone_ Jaemin was so eager to introduce to Renjun was the one cooking. 

“So… you caught the big game, huh?” The pleasantness of the place, and the sweet taste of nostalgia caused him, someone who’s not much of a small talker, to somehow muster a grin and a small nudge towards the kitchen. Jaemin responded with a playful shove.

“Stay there. I’ll get you some drinks.”

But just as he was starting to warm up on the idea of _staying_ , perhaps until it was dark outside and not only for the next thirty minutes, he was jolted straight with the loud sound of metal crashing on the floor. 

He hesitated for a second before asking, “do you need an extra hand in there?”

“No!” Jaemin yelled back, with a laughter that sounded a bit harsher than what he must’ve intended it to be, “you’re the guest! Just relax!”

He really wanted to. But another clang rang through the small space and he decided to at least show some courtesy and pop his head in to make sure no one was hurt because of him. 

A third thud vibrated through the ground. This time, caused by Renjun’s bum colliding against the imitation parquet flooring. Tragic. He tripped over his own leg when his body involuntarily jerked away from the separator after he was done taking in and processing the sight unfolding before his eyes. 

His tragedy didn’t end there, though. The sheer shock running through his system caused Renjun to fail in executing the _one thing_ his desire and common sense has agreed on at last. Which was to _RUN!_ Screamed to him in all caps, 20 U in the middle, and 15 exclamation points at the end. He could only sit there, shaking, trembling, eyes mouth nose ears gaping as he sank through the weird emotion that was a perfect blend of fear, awe, and disgust.

Because standing in the kitchen beside Jaemin was _something_ he _knew_ and _understood_ was never supposed to be seen by any human eyes. 

It’s purple. It’s… _undulating._

It’s a giant blob of an unidentified cephalopod. 

And it has just _apologetically grinned at him._

_

  
  


“Here you go~” Jaemin, ever so chipper Jaemin, glided out from the kitchen and served him his plates of dinner, “pan fried tilapia in lemon sauce and clam bouillabaisse.” 

He then proceeded to explain animatedly what went into which dish, before loudly pulling, sitting, and dragging on his chair to join in with the remaining duo. Sadly, all those distractions failed in pulling Renjun out of his daze. 

His hypnotic daze. 

Renjun spent the last thirty minutes thinking he’d died, at first. Thinking he’d been poisoned with some LSD, second, and thinking that this was all a dream, lastly, which was why Jaemin nearly caught him firmly rubbing the side of his thigh when he gave him his glass of water. He’d stabbed it with a fork.

Knowing that weirdly, _impossibly,_ this _was_ his reality, Renjun then wasted the last five minutes staring at the abomination _sitting_ in front of him. Wherever he tilted his head to, he still couldn’t tell where it started and where it ended. 

It has no mouth. No nose. No… _face,_ even. No neck, no skull, perhaps? No sectioning whatsoever as its body’s literally the shape of a thimble. A flan pudding. A grape jelly cup, maybe? It has a semi transparent gelatinous body that was covered in a sheen of crackly matte skin (like dried out gemstone jelly candy, he thought) only housing two beady eyes whose gaze could seemingly pierce into one’s soul, and eight tentacles that splayed out from underneath it. It also has two ear-like flaps at the top of its body, that seemed vestigial, bodily function wise, and were only there to be used to enhance its bordering-to-implausible way of emoting itself. Like then. How it would perk them upright when Jaemin placed the plate and bowls in front of his spot on the table. Renjun cursed himself when he clearly understood how it was saying _thank you_ with just a little squeeze of its eyes. 

Jaemin responded with a kiss on its head, and the thing _purred._ Or at least it appeared to be, what with the way its skin rippled from the point of physical contact. Renjun’s skin, too, rippled. But less so because of content and more so because of _disgust._

He morbidly stared at Jaemin’s lips, positively expecting that it would shrivel up and flake off from the rest of his face in rotten chunks, but were interrupted when Jaemin clapped his hand right in front of his gaping mouth. 

“Are you okay?” He asked, genuinely concerned, “did you hit your head when you slipped?”

It was just like what happened earlier. After he slipped and was nearly driven mad by the presence of a physical anomaly, Jaemin worriedly came to his help and asked, “are you okay?!”

Both times, Jaemin could only hover around in awkward silence as Renjun was too busy staring at the thing with an abject… puzzlement. “You’re still weird as shit. Now eat! Before it goes cold.”

Ah. Here it goes. The sole reason for why Renjun stayed instead of running out of the place the very moment his legs could be asked to cooperate, social courtesy be damned. Sheer curiosity on how a creature without _mouth_ could _eat._

Nonchalantly (how a tentacle movement could be registered as _nonchalant,_ Renjun himself didn’t know), as if it knew it was being carefully watched, the creature gripped the knife and fork with its tentacles and used it to cut a small piece of fish. Renjun waited with bated breath as it brought the food closer to its body, before a small puff of confused _‘huh?’_ escaped him when the octopus just… pressed the piece of fish on the skin just slightly lower than its eyes. In a location that, if it has a mouth, that’s the place it’ll be. The skin that surrounded the bit of fish rippled, and little by little, it _swallowed._ The small cube of white fish meat now swam within the purple gelatin, before slowly fizzling to nothing in a school of miniscule bubbles. 

Renjun shuddered, and quickly dove back into his food that after all that has looked less appetising than they were before. 

It ate a clam whole, shells and all. They dissolved to nothing in record time. 

In between struggling to swallow and keep his food down out of courtesy, Renjun managed to catch bits and pieces of Jaemin’s interesting monologue. About his life this past 4 years, about the _thing,_ which he’s named Jeno, for some reason. In his confusion, Renjun accidentally blurted out, “why Jeno?” and Jaemin looked at him as if he just sprouted a second head, “because… his parents gave it to him?” 

On top of everything, he also told Renjun about his internship at the nearby sea life conservatory. “The place where we met,” he lovingly said to the blob. To the blob named _Jeno._

It smiled back at him. God help him the thing has no mouth but Renjun could tell, from the way its eyes sunk a little into its gelatinous flesh and the way the skin around its eyes crinkled, that it _was smiling._

_‘How?’_ He wondered. How could Jaemin not _see_ this? When one of its tentacles deftly _caressed_ the corner of Jaemin’s mouth to wipe it clean from speckles of butter, he reacted to it as if it was nothing more than a _human finger,_ and not a squishy _matter_ of unknown origins. When it delved a little bit, pushing past his upturned lips and, dare he say, _teasingly_ swiped its squishy flesh against the inside of his bottom lip, Jaemin reacted _not_ with disgust, but with a faint blush and a playful slap. “Not in front of the guest, dumbo,” he shyly mumbled. The sound of the slap echoed awkwardly throughout the small room in wet _‘blub’_ s _._

Perhaps something’s wrong with _him,_ Renjun thought. Perhaps, the _thing_ sitting right in front of him was human after all, and he only perceived him to be this sea monster from the deep because of… because of his prolonged isolation? His lack of meaningful social interaction with other human beings has rotted his brain from the inside out? 

He’s been walking around his life in a total daze. Perhaps. Perhaps _others_ have been seeing him as a giant gelatinous blob all this time. That would explain everything.

Renjun was abruptly brought out of his daze with the sound of cutleries crashing against the floor. His attention was then instantly directed towards Jaemin, the culprit, who all of a sudden was bent over the table, gasping for air. 

The oddness of the sight, the _severity_ of it, the fact that it was something that he never expected to ever see, dealt a particularly heavy blow onto Renjun’s reaction time. Five seconds, to be exact, in which he could only stare in dumbfoundedness the sight of Jaemin that was cradling his head in pain. 

“What is happening?” He asked, unsure of what he should or _could_ do, before he instinctively turned his worry to the person sitting in front of him. _The thing,_ sitting in front of him. Wrong move. The reminder that Jaemin did _not_ have a normal partner caused another major blow onto Renjun’s psyche, and he found himself jumping backward on his chair, leaning so far away in confusion and fear that the two front legs of his chair achieved lift off. 

Then, just as suddenly as how everything started, it ended.

But _ended_ in this case did not happen in a normal sense. Jaemin didn’t recover slowly, he didn’t apologise for the mini (or major, actually) freak out that he caused. He didn’t give flimsy excuses, or laugh before taking out a small medical card to explain his condition from the back of his jeans.

Jaemin just slowly returned to a normal sitting posture on his chair. Back straight. Eyes empty and staring at the opposite wall. A smile hung on his lips, and it twitched together with his limp fingers that dangled lifelessly at the side of his body. 

A tentacle coiled tight around his neck. The tip glowing, and pressed flush against the center of his nape.

  
  
  


_‘It’s lonely in the deep.’_ _  
_ _  
_ _  
  
_

Before he could even _begin_ to process the bizarre sequence of events unfolding before him, Renjun had another addition to his mounting terror in the form of an odd itch within his brain. 

  
  
  


_‘I’ve been alone for centuries.’_

  
  
  


The itch turned into a voice. 

An eerily human voice that was not _his._

His ears started to ring, in a crescendo that grew so loud so quickly it left his own cutleries clattering over his half finished meal when his fingers seized from the pain. He couldn’t move. Renjun wasn’t even given the mercy of _screaming_ out his terror, from how his mouth could only hang open as silent agony coursed through his body. Drool and half chewed food leaking from the corner of his lips as he choked on his fear when the monster forced him to hold his gaze against its pitch black eyes, when it moved to enter his field of vision and glided effortlessly around the table, only stopping when it was standing inches from his petrified face. Pressure mounted within Renjun’s stomach and he now understood why he was so intimidated, so inherently _terrified_ of its beady eyes. It mirrored the hopelessly vast nothingness of the deep ocean. 

  
  
  


_‘You, out of all people, must’ve understood.’_

  
  
  


As if only waiting for the inevitable, Renjun’s eyes, the only part of him that still could move, darted down to his plate, where he then, and only then, saw miniscule cubes of transparent purple gels hidden in between the nooks of his asparagus. At his bowl of soup. At his glass of water. 

Wisps of faint bioluminescent sparkles swam on their surfaces. Like whimsical oil spills. 

He looked back up at the monster, and saw within its eyes, desperation.

Realisation crushed him like the rollings of a rogue wave.

  
  
  


_‘Please understand.’_

  
  
  


_

  
  
  


Renjun often dreamt of this moment. One where he woke and found that he was frozen. Petrified. Locked up. Propped against the wall like a marionette doll with all its strings slack and tangled all around its limbs.

His eyes could only stare straight, unblinking, at the other end of the room. At a single-seater sofa that was pushed flush against the tall windows that depicted the most beautiful of sunsets he’s ever seen. Jaemin sat on it. 

He sat on it, but upside down. 

His legs rested upright, only bent over on the knees when they went past the backing. His fingers clawed at the arm rests, and his head dangled past the seater. His eyes were wide open and were trained right onto Renjun’s. But they were glazed, still, like no one was home. It looked like he was also locked onto his unfortunate position, limbs only occasionally twitching, and eyes widening even more so, even _more so,_ when the tentacle that was jammed into his slacked mouth undulated and inches slightly further into his throat. 

Sometimes Renjun thought he could _see_ him, see _Jaemin_ peeking from beneath the haze. 

Oddly, when it happened, he didn’t see terror. He saw _bliss._

_‘I’m not hurting him.’_

He heard the itch, coming from the monster who stood so patiently beside the sofa. Seven of his tentacles curled underneath itself, like a comfortable cushion. The eight spent its time worming deeper into Jaemin’s unconscious body. 

_‘I apologise that you have to see us like this. Usually I would put him in a more comfortable position. But we were… short on time.’_

The _very real_ discomfort, the shooting pain that crawled from the base of his neck with the echoes of each syllable reminded Renjun, for the fifth time now, that this _wasn’t_ a dream.

“And you expect me to believe that?” This was the first time out of his numerous cycles of coming and going consciousness that Renjun managed to reclaim his voice. Perhaps the sedative has worn out. Or perhaps, it allowed him to regain control, if not just for a short while. Renjun leaned on the latter, judging from the way it creased the skin over its eyes in a move that he understood conveyed _amusement._

_‘This is our daily conditioning session. He can’t afford to perceive me with the same amount of honesty as you now are. So I’m helping him with… the alignment of certain things.’_ It explained with such ease. Like it was merely telling Renjun of the reason why they decided to get the purple sofa, instead of the cream one. Instead of _why_ he was violating an unassuming human that twitches like a dead frog underneath its control. 

_‘This is not a violation of rights.’_ It said, after it once again intruded into Renjun’s thoughts and read them without permission. _‘He consented to this.’_

“Did he?”

_‘Yes.’_

“I doubt that.”

The creature glared at him, and for once Renjun was glad of his sedation. The stiffness of his body meant that his reflexes failed him, and Renjun could then appear to be unflinching when faced with such ancient wrath. He steeled his nerves even further and argued, “I don’t know how your kind do it down in the deep, but here, it’s not a _yes_ when someone said it to a completely different set of terms and conditions. What is he perceiving now, huh? You throatfucking him while I watch?” 

They both got too worked up, and it was Jaemin who paid. Its tentacles ruffled, seemingly in annoyance, and the rapid changes in shape caused him to painfully gag around the one that has lodged itself down god knows how deep within his body. His legs jerked around like fish out of water, and his nails dug into the armrests so deeply they began to tear. Renjun genuinely worried that he would be a helpless audience to a completely avoidable death, but the creature swiftly put everything under control when it once again pressed the glowing tip of one of its tentacles at the base of Jaemin’s skull. 

“Stop it. _Please.”_ Renjun was still gasping through his panic when he coughed out his pleadings. “You’re killing him.”

The creature was quiet for a long time. Too long, in fact, that it gave Renjun the unfortunate implication that it was feeling remorse. 

It caressed Jaemin’s cheeks with one of its spare tentacles, and used another two to prop his neck into an angle that didn’t cause Renjun’s own to ache on his behalf. They were all done so tenderly, so much so that he found himself asking,

“Why?”

The creature moved its body as if it’s just sighed. Perhaps he adopted the habit from Jaemin, perhaps it _could_ sigh. But, bottom line, it sighed, and said, _‘it’s lonely in the deep.’_

“It’s lonely up here on dry land too. But you don’t see me capturing a jellyfish from the sea and using it for my own sick needs!”

_‘... please calm down.’_

“How do you expect me to calm down?! You’re hurting my friend!” Anger proved to be the correct key in unlocking the chain that shackled him to the wall. As he could feel it, coursing through his blood, the heat of his fury thawing the icy sedatives, far along enough that Renjun could force himself to lurch up to his feet and take a grand total of three shaky steps before crumpling back down to the floor with a sickening thud. 

The combination of physical concussion with the mental probing reduced his world to a pin prick of light surrounded by a continuously circling tunnel of images. He could only lay there on the floor, face down, and wincing in pain until he felt a cold finger pressing against his nape. 

Not a tentacle.

_A finger._

The cold numbness of the creature’s poison once again rushed through his body. But just when he was about to brace himself for another bout of unconsciousness, Renjun was instead granted a period of clarity and control. A distinct, much missed feeling that he was finally the sole driver of his body once more. 

Being careful, Renjun slowly rolled himself onto his back, only to have his breath forcefully stuffed into his lungs in one shocked gasp when he was greeted by an upside down face of a stranger. A _human shaped_ stranger. 

He first instinctively shot a look at the front door of the apartment. Closed. Locked. No proof that it’s been tampered in the last five minutes. Then, he craned his head to look at Jaemin’s cursed sofa, and saw that its owner had comfortably curled himself to sleep on its seat, eyes finally closed in a peaceful slumber and no longer haunting Renjun with their empty gaze.

So when he’s eliminated the impossible, whatever’s left… 

“This is what he perceives.” It said. _He_ said. _Jeno said. “This_ is what he sees.”

It was no longer an itch. Its voice was then human. Physical. Audible. And yet, Renjun could still feel a weird phantom echo pinging around his cranium like how sound would travel underwater. Oddly sharp, but unclear in direction and distance. 

In a shocking twist, it proved to be a worse experience compared to when the creature was nonconsensually probing his mind. 

“So you lied to him?” 

At that accusation _,_ Jeno smiled. Some would say, _Jaemin_ would say, that it was the most graceful smile a _human_ being could have and beheld. But then, right then, looking at it upside down with its inky black pupil staring right at him, only partially hidden by the upturned slit of its eyelids, Renjun felt nothing other than _terror._

Without hesitation, it answered Renjun’s question. 

“Yes.”

And without hesitation, Renjun lunged at it and brought it down with a vicious clawing on his face. _“You lied to him!”_ He screamed, desperately pummeling the illusion of its human flesh with all the remaining energy and rage that he has. 

Sadly, he didn’t have many. 

With ease, as easy as the smile that hung on his lips, the creature, that’d built a leathery prison beyond its truth, pinned Renjun down on the floor once more. 

The illusion was cracking at the seams. Arms and legs were tentacles. Fingers were suction cups. Its skin smelled faintly of salt, faintly of crustacean carcasses left too long under the sun. Its true image fleeting to Renjun’s consciousness as it escaped through gaps that ran beyond its control. 

Purple flesh, and emotionless. 

The pleasant grin it had when all of Renjun’s limbs were secured under its tight grasps only made everything worse.

“I can’t afford him reacting to my truth the same way you do.” To the terrified crook on Renjun’s expression, _Jeno_ laughed, “you think I’m blind? It’s obvious you find me disgusting. That you find me abominable.”

Renjun cringed when he once again felt _it_ intruding into his brain. Worse yet, this time, the link ceased to be one sided, with it peeking through a looking glass and Renjun desperately trying to hide his thought by thinking up a jumble of random math problems. This time, the monster destroyed the barrier completely and forced him out. Dragged him and threw him onto the two way bridge where now he could _feel._

Everything.

_Nothing._

The pressure of the depth filled his lungs and before he knew it, he was already sobbing for mercy. It was a feeling he had tried so hard to forget. The crushing loneliness of the dark. He didn’t need help reminding that he’d _never_ escaped it in the first place. 

“You, out of everyone, should understand.”

_“Please.”_ Renjun blubbered as he struggled vainly to escape its mental torture. Face a mess of tears and snot and he felt like he would burst through the seams if it kept him like this. Sharp, shooting ache running up and down his nerves as if his body was only a plumbing system it used to contain the regurgitation of its deep seated trauma. “He’s not me. _Please,-_ he loves you. _He loves you!”_

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t risk it.” It said, while still it pressed deeper, deeper, deeper, _deeper,_ until Renjun wondered _how_ it still could go on. Surely, there _must_ be nothing left of him to explore after it’d hit rock bottom, after it’d known the basest, most vile desires he had, hidden deep within the recesses of his brain. He’d been forced open. Naked. Flayed. Yet still it went. Deeper. He’d gone way past the point of suffocation where he himself then began to wonder, surely his darkness couldn’t go that far, could it? _Could it?_

“I can’t risk him leaving.” It continued, followed soon by a courteous laugh. “Please. _You_ must understand.”

He is it. It is he. For two beings to share the exact same emotions and desire and dreams and goals and,- and.- _and,- and,-_

Were they, ever, _different?_

“Ah, finally.” Sensing his growing submission, it scuttered away from Renjun, letting go of his once again immobile limbs and standing guard to his left. Its beady eyes looking down at him with so much contentment, Renjun found it hard to find the will to fight back. “How considerate. I rarely get compliance this quickly,” it mumbled, “perhaps this is why he recommended you.” 

Renjun noticed, little by little, the flickers of its malfunctioning illusion got fewer and fewer in frequency. Jeno could’ve told Renjun that it had accidentally put hallucinatory mushrooms in his water and he’d believe it. “Do you know? He thinks of you as one of his closest friends. And yet,-”

“Am I going to die?” Renjun croaked, cutting it short. At that point, the last anomaly he could sense was the phantom limb curling around his neck, slowly inching up his jaw and knocking at the corner of his trembling lips. All that, but even when he looked down, he saw _nothing_ out of place. 

Jeno only smiled at him. That graceful, calming smile grew past its lips and onto its eyes and he forgot. His worry, his fear, the anomalies that happened within the small, imposing walls of this lonely apartment. Dark eyes so black they shone blue when framed by the waning light of day. Sea at midnight, with a crescent moon reflected on it. Renjun found himself unable to avert his gaze away from it. 

“Thank you.” It said, the last thing he could clearly hear before darkness claimed him once more. The last thing he felt was the jelly-like appendage slithering into his slacked mouth. 

_‘I knew you would understand.’_

  
  


_

  
  
  


The sky was already long dark when Renjun bid farewell to his old classmate and his charming partner.

He remembered asking what had happened in a manner much too panicked for someone who, as Jaemin said, has just woken up from a three hours long food induced nap.

_“When was the last time you ate?”_ Jeno, the boyfriend, asked him. And when Renjun stuttered to find a suitable answer for it, he only laughed, before handing Renjun a paper bag filled to the brim with plastic containers. _“Take it,”_ he said, ever so kindly, _“leftovers for your home.”_

He couldn’t refuse. 

In a daze, Renjun retraced his steps. Back down the strange apartment complex, through the quiet broadwalk that bordered the calm sea. The moon looked mystical as it was reflected on the waveless waters, but instead of allowing the sight to consume all of his attention, Renjun felt an impulsive pull, a sick, unknown need to look back at the building he just came out of. 

His instincts told him not to. But his common sense chided him. _What’s wrong with looking back?_ He mouthed. And with a shrug, he did. 

There was a window on the fifth floor that lit up in a warm, yellowish glow. 

Little by little, others joined. 

_“It was really fun!”_ As he watched the lights turning, one by one, like an orchestrated Christmas show, Renjun remembered Jaemin’s cheery words when he walked him out to the elevator. _“Would you maybe like to do this again next week?”_

Renjun took a glance at Jeno, who stood slightly to the back. In a way politely asking for permission, combined with a reassurance that _there is really nothing going on between us._ With a pleasant smile from the latter, all his worries were silenced. 

_“Of course. I’m glad we can catch up after all this time.”_ He said, accepting the invitation. The smile on Jaemin’s face was the brightest anyone’s given him. It, together with the sight of the building completely lighting up in warm, inviting yellow lights, reminded him of… of comfort. Of family meals taken at a dinner table. Candle lights on birthday cakes. Waking up to the greetings of the sun. Things he knew very well he could no longer have.

Or could he?

Renjun had to force himself to turn around and walk back to the direction of the subway station. With each step he took, it led him further and further, closer and closer to the fond memory of his estranged classmate. Jaemin _was_ his closest friend during highschool after all. 

As he walked, the sound of water meld together with the crunch of gravel from underneath his feet. Renjun found himself muttering in agreement the words Jaemin whispered when he gave him a farewell hug. 

He _has_ to be careful.

  
As it _is indeed lonely in the deep._

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by a dream i had where i met a purple tentacle blob but the moment i looked it in the eyes i could tell it was jeno.  
> wild.
> 
> anyways, i struggled so much with this story. It started as something kindda fluffy and cute but when I was only one scene away from completing it i was like "??? this aint it". Basically, this final work is 80% different from what I first set out to write.... the title is a legacy to that tho sjdfnk  
> sweet blob cephalopod is too cute for this but wellllll it's ok :)) 
> 
> i guess this is me outing myself as a monster fucker but oh well what can you do (guillermo del toro call me)
> 
> hmu @ my twitter [@moon__soil](https://twitter.com/moon__soil)  
> or @ my tumblr (which nowadays I frequent more often) [@heibaihuangzi](https://heibaihuangzi.tumblr.com/)


End file.
